


a glacier's patience

by isawet



Category: Isotopia
Genre: Canon Gay Character, F/M, Isoverse, M/M, Pining, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-07
Updated: 2012-12-07
Packaged: 2017-11-20 13:40:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/585970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isawet/pseuds/isawet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gallium gets by, gets through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a glacier's patience

**Author's Note:**

> for els :*

Gallium remembers waking up every morning with the heavy, sick feeling in his stomach, all the times his mother took him shopping for skirts and button blouses, forced smiles growing more strained at every refusal. He picks his senior year for the treatments and the surgeries because he wants to go to college as his own person, the person he wants to be, should be, meant to be.

Gallium moves in with Aluminium two months after he meets her.

//

“This is your room,” she says, and Gallium rolls his suitcase to a stop by the beat up futon and dumps his duffel on the hardwood floor, the _thud_ softened by the rug Aluminium bought him as a welcoming present. Gallium kicks off his shoes and wiggles his socked toes in the threads of the rug, a brilliantly neon shade of green Aluminium finds particularly hilarious. 

He spends two weeks resisting the urge to smell Aluminium’s body wash in the shower before he wakes up at four in the morning to drive Aluminium to the airport for her semester abroad.

//

Her eyes are a little wet when she hugs him at the curbside drop-off. Her hair is piled up under a baseball cap that smells suspiciously like hemp, and her breath puffs white fog in the air. He tugs the bill over her eyes, dishwater blonde eyebrows.

“Save the rainforests,” he says softly, and the hum of his car engine seems very loud behind him. She laughs, a quiet burst of amusement that dissipates just before it hits his face. He’d liked to have watched her disappear through the sliding glass doors until he couldn’t see her anymore, but he’s in a loading zone so he tucks his chin into the collar of his coat and turns the radio up loud to fill the silence on the way home.

//

The apartment feels empty without Aluminium, but Gallium gleefully makes hamburgers and hot dogs and grilled cheese sandwiches with real fucking cheese and he’s mostly too busy with classes and the support group anyway. He takes to playing music to keep the quiet at bay.

//

When Gallium walks into his living room to find Silicon lying facedown on his carpet, his immediate thought is that Aluminium left the door unlocked again. Then he remembers, and frowns.

“This isn’t how my life was supposed to go,” Silicon bemoans. Gallium really doesn’t know very much about Silicon. He knows he used to be popular, and that he used to make Aluminium cry before Aluminium started refusing to speak to him. He’s also personally witnessed Silicon stalking Potassium on two separate occasions, one of which looked suspiciously like grand larceny. Gallium mentally reviews all this information.

“Aluminium isn’t here,” he says, gingerly stepping over Silicon’s prone body and scanning the room to make sure he’s not missing any appliances or light fixtures.

“I know,” Silicon says, his voice muffled in the carpet. “Can’t even get that right.” Gallium loosed his laces with one hand and kicks his shoes off, ruffles a hand through his hair.

“How’d you get in here?” he asks, and Silicon makes a sort of subtle thrashing movement that could be a shrug.

“Bathroom window.” Gallium takes a minute to digest that and pictures the size of the bathroom window. He mentally upgrades Silicon from _creepy, mostly harmless_ to _keep the crowbar by the bed_. Gallium waits for a few minutes but Silicon doesn’t so much as budge.

“I used to be cool,” he says, mournfully. Gallium is pretty sure that isn’t true, but Silicon seems to know it as well, and Gallium has never made a habit of being cruel.

“Right,” he says, and goes into the kitchen. “You want a sandwich?”

“What kind?” Silicon says, but he sounds like he’s sitting up, at least.

“Peanut butter,” Gallium says, digging out the bread.

“Yeah,” Silicon says, “okay.”

“Then get in here and make one,” Gallium says, and tosses a banana at him when he trudges through the doorway. Silicon looks at it like Gallium threw him raw liver squares. “Dude,” Gallium says, because it’s an actual crime that Silicon hasn’t realized how delicious this is, “banana peanut butter.”

//

Silicon is waiting on his doormat two days later, flicking away embers from the tip of his cigarette. Gallium surreptitiously slips a hand in his pocket and feels for his phone. He doesn’t think Silicon is going to try and strangle him, but he distinctly remembers some of Aluminium’s rantings including dark predictions of psychotic breaks. Gallium fishes for his keys with his other hand. Silicon drops his cigarette into the dirt.

“What kind of peanut butter was that?” he asks, and Gallium blinks a little.

“Organic,” he says, nudging at Silicon with the tip of his shoe, “less oil.”

“Delicious as fuck,” Silicon says.

“Aluminium’s still not here,” Gallium says, shaking the door in its frame to unstick the lock.

“I know,” Silicon says. Gallium considers the fact that he’s become very accustomed to strange people saying strange things. His stomach rumbles.

“Want another one?”

//

Gallium breaks the top of his banana with a snap and twists his wrist with a butter knife, letting slices fall with quiet plops onto lightly toasted worthless whitebread, spread with chunky organic peanut butter, less oil. On the other counter Silicon is chopping his banana on a thin plastic cutting board with a jelly stained fruit knife with what looks like vicious satisfaction. Gallium chooses not to think about it too carefully.

Silicon bitches about some guy named Hydrogen that Gallium is pretty sure he’s seen around--he vaguely remembers thinking _goddamn_ , and Gallium tunes him out, enjoys the way the steam from his coffee hits his face just right.

// 

Silicon wipes his mouth with one hand and flops on Gallium’s couch, flipping through the channels. Gallium hesitates in the doorway of his room--he’s still a bit afraid if he leaves Silicon alone he’ll come back to find his water faucet ripped from the wall. Instead, he tugs a textbook from his bag and curls on the other side of the couch. Silicon laughs at something on the screen with his mouth open, banana peanut butter smile.

//

It’s another week before Gallium sees Silicon again. He’s blown Tungsten off again and feels bad about it, and he’s tired and it’s late and he just doesn’t care that Silicon is asleep on his couch. He shucks his coat and steps out of his shoes, pulls his socks of and peels his shirt off, leaving clothes behind him like a trail.

“Your class got out two hours ago,” Silicon says, and his voice is too rough and sleepy to have the usual smirking quality about it.

“Tutoring a freshman.” Gallium is surprised at how soft it comes out, low, husky. He’s so tired his eyes are crossing--he brings a hand to wipe at his mouth in case he’s actually drooling. He sits on the floor and leans his head back against the couch. Silicon makes a non-committal noise and the blanket Silicon’s under feels like the one his mother gave him, soft and fleecy and just thick enough.

“How’s you get in?” Gallium asks, his head lolling as his eyes close.

“Copied your key from a wax mold.”

 _you creepy fuck_ Gallium thinks,and falls asleep.

//

Boron is devastatingly attractive, the kind of striking that makes you take a breath, like a beautiful view and the aftermath of a tornado. He’s the kind of pretty you want to sit back and take in with your eyes and the kind of slutty that will have his tongue down your throat before you can. Gallium finds that he’s only distantly aesthetically attracted to Boron.

It also helps that Boron is extraordinarily put out at needing tutoring in the same area as his major.

Gallium sketches the chart again, the most basic principles of supply and demand, and plots the correct points. Boron checks it against his own work and curses.

“Why won’t you fuck me,” he demands, predictably petulant, a statement Gallium has head approximately fifteen times in the last forty-five minutes. “How gay are you--or wait, would it be how straight?” Gallium fights down a violent twitch and a stab of anger and writes two more practice problems.

“Fifteen dollars please,” he says politely after twenty more minutes. He calmly steers Boron’s hand away from his zipper and tries not to consider what his life has become.

//

“I made ravioli,” Silicon says, and Gallium correctly translates translates _ravioli_ to _Chef Boyardee out of the can_. He thinks with a bit of dawning horror that he didn’t even scan the home for egregious property damage as he came in.

“I’ve got Boron on me,” he complains, and Silicon snickers. Gallium shuffles in the kitchen and finds Silicon had been nice enough to leave a third of the can left him, but Gallium’s stomach churns at the thought of eating anything that smells like that. He pokes his head into the fridge and groans.

“Let’s go out,” he says.

“What?” Gallium ignores Silicon, snagging him by the wrist and his shirtsleeve rides up just enough for Gallium’s fingers to touch the thin skin of Silicon’s wrist. He holds the beat of Silicon’s heart in his fingertips.

“Let’s go to a nudie,” Silicon says, and Gallium laughs, his fingers slipping back into his shirtsleeves.

//

They go to Aluminium’s least favourite restaurant, the one with the fake animal heads on the walls, football on the television, inorganically grown peanut shells dusting the floor.

“Gallium!” a voice calls before Gallium can cut his first bite of chicken. He looks up to see a pretty girl dressed in something purple and shimmery, long hair straight and naturally blonde. There’s a white gold cross dangling in the hollow of her collarbone. Gallium makes a valiant effort to remember a name and comes up with nothing.

“Hello,” he says politely. Her hands flutter nervously before coming to clutch around her cross, white knuckled. Gallium recognizes the type.

“We’re having a priest come speak at group on the twenty-fifth,” he says casually, “not a sermon or anything, more to start a discussion of faith.”

“O-okay,” the girl says uncertainly, and turns to Silicon, flushing.

“Oh-” she fumbles a little, flustered. “I interrupted your date.” She pauses. “If--does that mean you’re really straight?” Gallium sighs, and opens his mouth to be understanding.

“No you dumb bitch,” Silicon snaps. The girl squeaks. “He’s a dude, if we’re fucking it’s totally brokeback.” 

 

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Gallium scolds after he’s caught the girl and managed to get her to tentatively commit to coming to a meeting. 

“Hey,” Silicon says, “you like seafood? Look, see-food,” he tips his mouth open, laughing through half chewed baked potato. Gallium rolls his eyes.

“You,” he sighs, but the tips of his mouth won’t quite turn down.

//

“Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing,” Tungsten says, sprawled in Gallium’s lap.

“Mm,” Gallium says, and plays with her hair, lying back against bright green grass.

“Look,” she says, “that one looks like Poe, Edgar Allen.” Gallium tilts his head back and peers at the clouds.

“A raven, there,” he says, pointing, and when Tungsten turns he catches her in a kiss. She laughs, and Gallium loves every second, millisecond, kissing a girl as a guy in the sun of a bold blue sky.

//

Gallium slings his shoulderbag into the car and turns to find Boron all over him.

“I got an A,” he crows, and Gallium throws an arm around his shoulders companionably. Boron whoops, and Gallium laughs, the two of them staggering back and forth as their balance shifts right on the edge of losing.

 

Gallium feels a little bad about contributing to the delinquency of the underaged, but Boron offers him a plastic water bottle with a peeling label that tastes like apple juice lime vodka and that’s totally different.

He stumbles through the front door, giggling, Boron quivering on his back with laughter. They collapse on the couch, and Boron huffs as Gallium’s weight hits him. “Move,” he slurs, and twists around until he’s half in half out of Gallium’s lap. “Gally Gally uhm,” he sings, and Gallium pets his hair sloppily, working expensive product out of it until he can feel Boron’s real hair, thick and a little rough.

//

“You look cozy,” Silicon says coldly, and Gallium cracks an eye open. He can just see Silicon’s scowl through Boron’s hair, and Boron’s breath comes through his shirt, warming his chest and cooling it again, inhale exhale inhale. Gallium stretches a little, and Boron makes an upset noise, shuffling closer. Silicon reaches out and yanks Boron sharply off the couch. Gallium sits up abruptly and his head explodes.

“Arghush,” he says, clutching at his hangover. Boron snarls.

“I know you,” Silicon says, as Gallium blinks rapidly. “Boron the moron,” Silicon mocks, and Gallium catches Boron around the waist to prevent bloodshed. Boron flails, and falls back from his lunge, tumbling into Gallium’s lap. His face falls against Gallium’s neck. Silicon turns on his heel and storms out.

“Out of his mind,” Boron mumbles, fingers pressed to his temple. Gallium hopes his hangover hurts.

“He doesn’t even live here,” he mutters, and flops back on the couch. “Ugh.” His chest is cold without Boron lying on it. He dozes, and Boron shuffles towards the kitchen muttering about coffee.

 

Gallium opens his eyes again when Boron waves a mug under his nose. “Gimme,” he says.

“I made sandwiches,” Boron says. The room smells like toasted peanut butter. Boron reaches for the remote and Gallium takes a bite. The peanut butter is thick and choking in his mouth. Boron didn’t put sliced bananas in it.

“I’m not hungry,” he says.

//

“There’s a boy in my poetry class named Byron,” Tungsten says, a little breathless. Gallium curls the index finger of his right hand and she goes up on her tiptoes against the fridge, eyes fluttering shit. Gallium licks under her ear.

“Yeah?” He hums against her jaw and brushes a thumb across her hip. Tungsten takes a shuddering breath.

“I think I’ll date him,” Tungsten says. Gallium all but falls back. Tungsten opens her eyes and tilts her head quizzically. She hooks her fingers in his beltloops and tugs him back against her.

“I’m sorry,” Gallium says, “Is this breaking up?” Tungsten smoothes the fine short hairs on the back of his head and plays with the snap of his jeans

“You’re a fine young man,” Tungsten says, and kisses him. Gallium kisses her back automatically, confused. “I’m not Aluminium,” she says, and Gallium closes his eyes. “Hey,” she says, and hooks a leg over his hip, “break up sex?” Gallium laughs,

“You’re beautiful,” he says, and shifts her weight until she’s got both legs around him, biting at her collarbone. Her laugh is beautiful, bright, and he’s just a bit smug he manages to turn in to a begging sort of moan.

//

“I heard Tungsten dumped your ass,” Silicone says. Gallium holds out his hand.

“Hand it over,” he demands, and Silicon heaves a sigh.

“You’re so untrusting,” he says, and drops a key into Gallium’s hand. 

“Stop making copies of my key,” he says crossly, and Silicon produces a brown paper bag with a flourish.

“Ritz crackers,” he says gleefully. “Celery, raisins. Let’s do ants on a log, bitch.” Gallium feels a little burst of warmth in his chest.

“Thanks, I--” Silicon pulls out something slim and white from his other pocket.

“Pot!” he says, and the moment is different. _Not gone_ , Gallium thinks, snickering, _but different._

“I’m not smoking that,” he says, and Silicon protests, bobbing next to his shoulder all the way home. 

// 

“I heard Tungsten dumped you,” Boron says, and Gallium sighs heavily. “Oh,” Boron says, “was it... mutual?” He rolls the consonants, tongue between his teeth provocatively. Gallium makes a failed effort not to stare at his mouth. 

“She did dump me, I guess,” Gallium says, “but it’s just sort of--” he shrugs. Boron looks thoughtful. 

“You need a one night stand,” he says. 

“I need you to pay for our session,” Gallium replies, and Boron rolls his eyes. Gallium hates how good Boron looks in eyeliner. Boron walks to him, hips rolling, and traces a nail down Gallium’s throat. Gallium catches his wrist and squeezes until Boron’s eyes flinch the littlest bit. 

“If we ever sleep together,” Gallium says, and squeezes harder because he is not always such a nice guy, “it won’t be for services rendered.” He lets go and Boron looks a little less put together than he usually does, rubbing at his wrist. Gallium thinks there will be bruises there in the morning. He remembers holding Silicon’s wrist just like that but different. 

//

Aluminium comes back on a Tuesday. 

“Gally!” she shrieks, and he sweeps her up in a hug, spinning. Her hair smells just like he remembered, but her laugh is even better. He missed her so much he listens to almost half her rant about the imperialist slavery of the Earth’s resources before tuning her out. 

She takes one step into the house and gives Gallium the evil eye. “You’ve been eating meat,” she says, and then gasps, one hand covering her mouth. “And dairy! Oh _Gallium_.” Gallium makes a token effort at looking abashed. 

Aluminium makes him something out of organic tofu and fifteen dollars an ounce snow peas that Gallium highly doubts is “a native staple of the natives of southern Argentina.” 

// 

Gallium wakes up one morning and shuffles out for breakfast to find Aluminium slamming notebooks into her backpack and Silicon aggressively stirring creamer into his coffee. Both of them seemed to have assumed a method of frosty silence. 

Gallium slowly backs into his room on his tiptoes and sits on his bed, laughing quietly. 

// 

“Good morning,” he says, and rips his toaster waffle in half to share with Silicon. Silicon lets him drink half of his coffee. Aluminium ruffles his hair on her way to the shower. 

// 

Gallium sprawls on the couch, tossing popcorn in the air and catching it with his mouth, happy to have the house to himself for the night. He licks salt off his fingers and reaches for the remote, humming, only to be stopped by a banging on the door. 

“Carbon,” Boron says brokenly, and falls into Gallium’s chest. Gallium deposits him on the couch and puts a pot on the stove for hot cocoa. He goes into the hall closet and finds the thick down comforter, detours into the kitchen for tiny marshmallows. 

“This,” he says, pressing a mug into Boron’s hands, “is a Mystery Science Theater marathon, old school.” He tucks Boron against his side and settles the blanket around them. He ruffles Boron’s hair affectionately. 

// 

Gallium wakes up and yawns. He can hear the pipes turn off, and he’s sleepy, guard down, so he watches Boron comes out of the bathroom with a towel slung low on his hips with open appreciation. Boron smirks, same old confidence. Gallium is surprised to find how much he missed it. 

“Where’s Aluminium?” he asks, and then smiles a different sort of smile, sharper, “Silicon?” 

“Aluminium’s at an environmental PETA seminar,” he says, “Silicon is bringing bugs to Potassium like a creepy cat bringing dead animals to its owner.” 

“Jealous much?” Gallium snorts. 

“Make me coffee,” he says, heading to the shower. Boron scoffs, then catches his waist. His arm is very warm from the hot water. 

“Thanks,” he says. 

// 

Gallium gets a call from Silicon, who sounds like he’s having actual difficulty breathing through his laughter. 

He arrives at the library printing center five minutes later at a jog. 

“This paper represents the slicing and dicing of our natural treasures!” Aluminium is shouting, “Every paper you write is a direct attack on the most precious wooden ecosystem! The barren remains of beauty beseech you!” 

“ _You studied in London!_ ” A bystander screeches. Gallium shoves his way through the crowd and puts his hands on his hips. 

Aluminium has handcuffed herself to the doors that lead to the computer center that houses all the printers of the library. 

“Aluminium.” Gallium says with infinite patience, “No.” 

“But Gallium,” she says. Another student grabs Gallium by the back of the shirt. 

“I have a term paper due in sixteen minutes,” she hisses, “I’ve been up for fifty six hours and taken at least twice the recommended dosage of Ritalin. I _will_ kill her.” 

Gallium steps up and hooks his finger under Aluminium’s collar, yanks the chain with the dangly silver key off it. He slings his arm around Aluminium’s waist comfortingly and promises her he’ll forward her chain e-mail suggesting the strike on blue-books. 

// 

“So you’re... straight,” his mom says slowly. “You like... boys.” Gallium represses the urge to scream. 

“No Ma,” he says, “if I was straight I would like girls. It’s more fluid than that.” 

“You’re not straight then,” she says with certainty. 

"No Ma,” Gallium says quietly, “I’m not.” 

// 

“I never thought my kid would be a dyke,” his dad says, taking a sip from his glass. 

“Maybe I’ll be a fag instead, then,” Gallium says coolly, and his dad snorts, eyes a little wet from the scotch. 

“I used to picture walking you down the aisle,” his dad says, and pours another drink. 

// 

“Hey,” Boron says when he exits the back door from the club he works at to find Gallium leaning against the wall. “What're--” Gallium crowds him against the wall and slides his fingers through his hair, kissing him hard. Boron’s fingers twist in his shirt. 

“Take me home,” Gallium says, and Boron’s eyes go liquid dark. 

“Happy Birthday me,” he drawls. 

//

Boron seems almost nervous when he lets Gallium into his room, muttering about his roommate being out, but when he turns to look at Boron from under his eyelashes he’s cool angles and cocked hips. He slips up and kisses under Gallium’s jaw, just where Gallium likes it. Gallium puts a hand on Boron’s chest and pushes him on the bed. 

Gallium covers Boron with his body and presses down until Boron starts to undulate against him. Gallium slides his hands around his shirt until he can feel skin on his hands, and licks down to his bellybutton. When he looks up he understands why Boron likes doing this, because Boron is looking at him like he’s got all the cards, eyes black and chest heaving. 

Boron sits up to kiss him, murmuring nonsense, and Gallium likes this, he likes that with Boron there’s no uncertainty or nervousness, just this affection and fondness that won’t fade or grow into stronger emotion. 

//

Gallium lets himself into the apartment, yawning, to find Silicon leaning against a wall like he’s the one holding it up. 

“Walk of shame,” Silicon says with a hint of something in his voice. Gallium shrugs. 

“I’m not ashamed,” he says. Silicon walks out, knocking Gallium’s shoulder hard and slamming the door behind him. 

//

Boron blows a raspberry on Gallium’s shoulder. He laughs, and flicks Boron on the temple. 

“Focus,” he says, and flips through the pages of the textbook. Boron sprawls in a chair opposite him. 

“You know you’re special,” Boron says teasingly, and Gallium grins at him. 

“Oh?” 

“Yeah,” Boron throws a rubber ball against the ceiling at catches it again. “Out of everyone I’ve had sex with, you’re like, the only male-female. It’s like a two in one. No idea which post to notch.” Gallium feels his entire chest turn to ice. His pencil stills on the page. Boron throws the ball and catches it again. 

“Get out.” Boron looks up, surprised. 

“Wha-” 

“Get out,” Gallium says, something rising, turning, souring, “get out, get out, _get out of my house_.” Gallium waits for the click of the front door before throwing the book across the room, denting the wall. The pencil snaps in his fingers, and he fits the pieces against each other, slipping because his vision is blurry and wet. 

//

“Gallium,” Aluminium says gingerly, and pokes her head through the door, “I’ve brought you something.” Gallium tries to muster up a smile. 

“Oh,” he says, taking it from her, “red velvet.” 

“Real eggs,” Aluminium says, “don’t tell.” Gallium looks at her, and he can still see her in the dress he’d liked to see her wear at their wedding, but it’s blurry now, like something he saw in a movie he’d really liked, a fond memory of someone he used to date. He hugs her impulsively. 

“I love you Gally,” she says, and he tickles her until she squeaks for calling him by that awful nickname. 

//

“I told you Boron was a Moron,” Silicon says. Gallium looks up from his notes and snorts. 

“We’ve already made up,” he says, and Silicon pauses. Gallium’s eyes narrow at the bandages around Silicon’s knuckles. 

“Oops,” Silicon says cheerfully. Gallium rolls his eyes to the heavens. Silicon sits next to him on the couch and crunches an apple. He smells like antiseptic. “Don’t worry,” he says, “I left that pretty face alone.” Gallium snorts again. He leans sideways until he’s against Silicon, and after a hesitation Silicon starts playing with his hair, scratching his nails on Gallium’s scalp. Gallium sighs happily. 

“I made another key,” Silicon says. His breath smells like the twist on the tongue green apples make. 

“That’s alright,” Gallium says as they both pretend Silicon’s lips didn’t just brush Gallium’s temple, “you can keep it.” 


End file.
